The Domino Effect, Chapter Eight

As the weeks passed, Phylidda sent her mother and brothers letters about her life as a governess for a rich American family in the country. She hadn’t nerve enough to state all the facts about Wallis Hartshorne and his curious relationship with their cherished estate. She posted all that to Ma’am. The first narrative she directed to that lady's attention became the first in a series of columns about the Hartshornes, whom she refrained from identifying. The stories, which Phyl chose to write in the guise of “Lady M. Dash,” were a hit. Sales of Lady Athol-Hight’s Society Paper soared.

The Hartshornes apparently knew nothing about their notoriety. Nor did Phyl betray her deep-seated desire to embarrass them as the usurpers of her legacy. They showed Phyl nothing but kindness and consideration, which led her to believe that, to them, she was little more than a blameless, lonely soul in need of protection from the evils of the world. Her schedule was a reasonable arrangement that one would expect to see in a reputable school and assured that neither she nor any of her charges was overworked. If anything, they all were overfed, for meals were unabashed family feasts that required portions fit for persons accustomed to frequent, massive doses of hearty, lethargy-inducing food. Phyl's dresses, too, reflected the Hartshornes’ generosity. She had one for every day of the week. Though each was a thing of practicality--modestly cut of dark fabric, with long sleeves, as befit a woman who spent most of her time with children--each also featured a high, expensive muslin frill at the neck. A scarlet fob at the bodice secured a small, self-winding watch by the Swiss house of Breguet.

As for personal comfort, Phyl's underpinnings were fashioned from the softest cottons and linen, and embellished with dainty lacework. She had a high-ceilinged, well-ventilated room to herself. However, the room was on an upper floor, away from the children. She was surprised to learn that her responsibilities for the children ended along with the school day. “You’re their teacher, not their parent,” Mrs. Hartshorne advised. The information struck Phyl as odd, for she knew few parents who were only too glad to relinquish their round-the-clock duties to nursemaids and governesses.

But perhaps the greatest oddity of Phyl’s new life was her mute employer. From what she could see, perpetually silent Wallis Hartshorne had no wife or children. He had chosen to dwell in a lordly manor with more than two dozen relations who had left the comfort of their homes and accompanied him thousands of miles across the sea not merely to a new life, but to a new country. Their fidelity was rewarded, or perhaps fueled, by the never-ending supply of the most basic requirements of life, provided with no apparent effort by a man who spared no expense for their ease.

Despite his wealth, Wallis Hartshorne was astonishingly thoughtful of his servants and tenants, as well. Often Phyl would spy him in the distant fields, chatting with all manner of staff: shepherds, cattlemen, haymakers, gardeners. Though he rode out on horseback, he dismounted for the meetings. “How very democratic,” Phyl would muse at the sight. “Whatever would young Earl Blystone think?” For Ronald would never deign to present himself before the common folk in so common a position. He always said that to present oneself on horseback was not so much to reinforce the lower class’s lowborn position, but to encourage the lower class to look up, and by physically looking up, to aspire to rise above their squalor and to better themselves.

And what, Phyl wondered, did Wallis Hartshorne himself aspire to? Was it enough for him to live like a lord, benefiting from the years of improvements and cultivation produced by generations of Phyl’s titled forbears? What kind of a man would live off the rightful belongings of another? Every day, Phyl awoke with the determination to ask him what his business was with the place, but every day lapsed not with an opportunity missed, with the preference not to venture upon the subject. Though she had ample opportunity to challenge him--he often met with her to discuss the children’s progress--she refused to trample his benevolence (not to mention her privileged life at the house) with questions that could betray her as an ingrate and have her thrown off the premises. She resolved to rely upon her columns to inspire her readers to question the appearance of the impudent foreigners and restore the Earl to his lands.

As Phyl walked to the village one sunny morning to post her latest column about life with the Americans, a burst of traffic revealed a horseman who turned his mount around as soon as he had passed her and rode back towards her. Dismounting, Wallis tipped his hat to her in what she perceived as a vaguely American pose, and mouthed a greeting. He walked beside her, leading the horse, a strapping bay gelding, by the reins.

Phyl felt as though she had been caught doing something wrong. “I’m posting a letter to a friend I left behind in London,” she lied as Wallis produced the ubiquitous notebook and pencil.

“I’m so sorry!” he wrote. “Had I known you had mail, I’d have brought it myself.”

“Thank you, but it’s a fine day for a walk, don’t you think?”

“Yes! Which is why I chose to ride, ha ha.”

How difficult to convey humor in writing, thought Phyl, smiling more from courtesy than delight.

Wallis failed to notice the smile's lack of spontaneity, for he continued to write. “Is there anything that you need or want, for yourself or for the children?”

”I want for nothing,” said Phyl, hoping she sounded truthful.

“Nothing? Are you certain?”

“I have everything I need, Mr. Hartshorne.”

“I know of no one on this earth who has everything he needs. Surely, there must be something?”

“Notatall. I’m quite happy, thank you. I should like to know something, though--” Phyl held the thought as Wallis respectfully helped her step around a bunny hole. “Pray tell me: Have you always been like this?”

“Like what?” he wrote as soon as he was assured that Phyl could walk without further assistance.

“Unable to speak.”

Wallis crushed a smile. “I’m quite able to speak. I just don’t make the sounds necessary for audible speech.”

Phyl recalled their confrontation on her first night at the house. “Excuse me. I should have asked if you have never been able to speak aloud.”

“It’s a long story, I’m afraid.”

“Ah, but it’s a long walk to the village.”

“Well, it’s not a glorious tale, either. Rather ordinary. Dull. Based on stupidity.”

“Were you a singer? Did you misuse your voice?”

Wallis’s face erupted in a great, nearly noiseless gasp of a laugh. Phyl could not resist laughing along with him. How different he looked when he laughed!

“No, no, no, no, no!” he protested in pencil. “And it wasn’t drink, either, if that’s what you’re thinking!”

The ground being uneven, Phyl leaned close, her hand ever so lightly on Wallis's arm, to see what he wrote. “What was it, then?” she prompted, eagerly looking into his eyes, which she only just realized were shaded by lashes that resembled the fringe on her mother’s black velvet wrap. “Why must men have the best eyelashes?” she mutely agonized.

Grinning with mischievous self-satisfaction, Wallis wrote: “As I said: stupidity. An attack of quinsy when I was a boy. The doctor lanced my vocal chords along with the abcess in my throat. See? Ordinary and dull, as promised.”

Phyl gulped, unable to understand why she now felt so miserable for prying. “I’m so sorry! How awful for you. How awful for your parents!”

“Awful? Never! Once they were a few days removed from the shock of the damage, they were relieved that they’d never again hear me screaming in order to coerce them into giving me whatever I wanted.”

“Your mother! That adorable, little old lady? She was that wretchedly cold-hearted—“

The hectic scribbling smothered Phyl’s disbelief, for she was compelled to rationally follow every syllable formed by the pencil: “Of course, they were horrified! Horrified, incensed, despondent. But not so horrified, incensed and despondent that they forgot to prepare me for a life without a voice. My father was a lawyer. He did what any lawyer would have done: he at once began to groom me for the law, bringing me into his office to work as a clerk. Simultaneously, he sued the doctor. The timing indicated to me that both actions were of equal importance.”

Now here was a revelation. At last, Phyl would know what he did for a living! Deep inside, she fluttered with the excitement that accompanies the joy of unexpected triumph. “You practice law, Mr. Hartshorne?” She struggled to make it sound like a question, not an exclamation of discovery.

He nodded.

“As a solicitor?” She could not imagine him attempting to try a case in court, as a barrister.

“We don’t have the distinctions you have here. Either one tries cases, or not. No matter which, one is still called a lawyer. Or an attorney. Or a counselor.”

“I take it you don’t try cases.”

He dropped his jaw in feigned gasp of horror.

“What?” Phyl giggled nervously, uncertain if she had committed a grievous error.

“I most certainly DO try cases!”

“How?”

He tapped the paper.

“Goodness, I should find all that writing tedious!”

“Sometimes my worthy colleague on the opposing side finds it tedious and settles—rather wisely, I must say--before the first recess.”

And Phyl wisely waited until they had progressed several more paces, so as not to appear too eager and indiscriminate, before asking what had been on her mind for weeks. “Pray, tell me one thing, Mr. Hartshorne. Forgive my frankness, but I feel I’ve been with you long enough to ask: How does an American lawyer come to live in an English manor?”

The reply was quick. “There are many similarities between English and American law. There must be, as the latter is founded upon the former. I believe that one of the likenesses extends to confidentiality. Forgive me if I cannot say more, but please trust that my business here is lawful and appropriate.”

“So the manor really isn’t yours? As people say it is,” Phyl hastened to add, fearing she had overstepped the bounds of good manners.

“Miss Athol-Hight, if the State of New Jersey ever allows women to appear before the Bar, yours would be the first name on the list for the privilege.”

“That’s a lovely way of telling me to mind my own business, is it not?”

“It is, rather, a compliment.”

Wallis’s lack of rancor at her questioning bolstered her courage to press on. “So please tell me this: You brought your entire family to England with you for what amounts to a business trip. Your client must be fabulously wealthy, indeed!”

“You don’t give up, do you?” Wallis wrote, shaking with silent laughter.

“Sadly, no, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Have you read Shakespeare?”

“I have.”

“Are you familiar with The Merchant of Venice? You may recall that one of the characters is a wise woman named Portia who practices law disguised as a man.”

“Of course...” Phyl wondered where this discussion would lead them.

Wallis squinted towards the slightly distant village, his eyes smudged by deep preoccupation. Some moments later, he wrote: “How fortunate that your first name begins with a P, for I can call you Portia, and write to you as P, and nobody will be the wiser. If you will allow me the pleasure, that is.”

Wallis was several steps away before he realized that Phyl had stopped and was now hidden behind the horse’s hindquarters. Her face, though shadowed by the bonnet’s straw bill, had turned deep claret. Her eyes were downcast. Her perplexity embraced a question: Why did he say that? Was it not enough that he was her employer? Did he mean to be a suitor too? Did he want to take her the way he had taken the estate?

There were only sorrow and concern, not lechery, thievery, nor any other element of criminal intent in Wallis’s face as he bent and turned his eyes to hers, so close their foreheads almost touched. Phylidda saw at once that she had been wrong to suspect the man of such abject villainy. He was no libertine. Nor was he the palest shade of a rake, despite his not being married. Shame spoiled her suspicion and stoked her misery. She willed herself not to cry. Tears leaked, all the same.

“No no, no, no, no,” Wallis mouthed. Briefly, he squeezed her shoulders, then reached for the notebook. Guessing he was about to apologize for the remark—which had been made rather shyly, Phyl noted—she placed her own hands over his, signaling there was no need to write. “I’m sorry,” she mewed. “I’m not accustomed to such attention.”

“No?” Wallis mouthed, eyes wide with soft disbelief.

Phyl remembered Philip in the print shop, with his pompous declarations of admiration, but, really, there was nobody else. There would never be anybody else. Not now, not after what her father and Wallis Hartshorne had done to her family. Phyl cast her answer in a teary whisper. “Never.”

“Why?”

Because I became poor, and no man in his right mind will marry a poor girl, Phyl thought, catching the shape of the word. “I am poor,” she said, then begged, as Wallis formed another “no,” “Please, Mr. Hartshorne, I’m alone, dependent on your charity. You mustn’t take advantage of my position.”

“Never!” he mouthed, with an earnest shake of the head. “Never!” Assured of his sincerity, Phyl released his hands and he wrote:

“Take this notebook. Please! Whatever you think of me at this moment--whatever wrong you imagine me capable of doing now or in the future--remember this: If ever I become cross with you, or speak boorishly to you, or do anything to signify any feeling contrary to the esteem that I have for you, show me these pages, and I will make amends with speed and before anyone who may have witnessed my transgression.”

He held out the booklet to her. At first she refused to take it. “I can’t take that from you! What will you use to communicate?”

“Oh," Wallis said, then thought, then wrote. “Pragmatically, I believe the stationer’s is nearby, so please have no fear of my going without the means to express myself. And there are more of these books at the house. However, so long as you are with me, I feel no need to resort to writing in order to convey my thoughts to someone who does not know me.”

“That’s unspeakably kind of you, Mr. Hartshorne, but may I remind you that you may need to convey some thoughts to me first. How, then—“

“You will know. As surely as I know that you were going to ask, ‘How, then, will I know what you mean to say?’ You will know.”

Once Phyl read the last note, Wallis closed her hands around the booklet with a tenderness that signaled both the end of the discussion and the beginning of something that Phyl could not have foreseen moments before: an understanding between them that transcended the transcription of consonants and vowels, and had, at its source, messages that are best understood in the heart.